


To Love Something Despite

by twitchtipthegnawer



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Adoption, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - No Heaven/Hell, Babysitter Aziraphale, Babysitting, Corporate Espionage, Dysfunctional Family, Human!Aziraphale, M/M, Miscarriage, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Child Abuse, angel!Crowley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-08-10 01:17:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20126980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twitchtipthegnawer/pseuds/twitchtipthegnawer
Summary: Aziraphale is eighteen years old and cursed with all the insecurities that come with that. For all that he doesn't know, however, a few things are certain: His mother and father, Gabriel and Michael, will not be paying for veterinary school. Anthony J. Crowley, for all that he's a mysterious, infuriating man, will pay incredibly well for a babysitter.And Crowley's son, Adam, is the single most angelic person Aziraphale has ever laid eyes on. If anyone wants to hurt him, they'll have to get through Aziraphale, first.





	1. In the Process of Growing

Aziraphale only allowed himself a few deep breaths before he turned the key in the car. A graduation gift from his father, not that he’d actually wanted it. The pickup truck was in no way his style. Of course, then Anathema and Newt had pitched in to have it painted with a mural of a sunny sky all across the side, and that made him like it quite a bit more. But still, he wasn’t feeling particularly good about sitting inside it at the moment.

Arguments with Father were never pleasant. It just so happened that this one fell right before a job interview, which was even worse. But he couldn’t just  _ not  _ go.

So, a few deep breaths, and then Aziraphale was turning on his behemoth and rolling onto the road. His phone chirped instructions at him, and he felt his nerves die down the further he got from his parents’ neighborhood.

Anyone offering $20 an hour for babysitting one child had to be wealthy, so he’d been worried Anthony J. Crowley and his son would live nearby. But instead, he found himself leaving behind the pretty, manicured lawns of the suburbs  _ (bad for the environment, _ the Anathema in his head whispered), and found himself headed towards the city proper.

Of course, the place he eventually pulled up to had a private parking garage in the basement, and a quick second glance at the note he’d taken about the ad had him pressing the button to buzz the penthouse suite. He did his best not to stare at the sign beside the door, proudly declaring the nearby airspace was privately owned by a wealthy angel family. He hoped it wasn’t  _ his  _ family.

Rolling his (wingless) shoulders, Aziraphale also hoped he didn’t have long to wait. Thankfully, the buzz back of, “Are you Aziraphale here for the interview?” Came in about a minute.

“That’s me,” Aziraphale confirmed.

_ Bzz.  _ “Come on up.”

Obediently, Aziraphale walked into the immaculate lobby. The woman sitting behind the front desk didn’t even glance up at him - she was filing her nails on the job, too, which struck Aziraphale as hilariously cliche. The elevator had a big mirror in place of one of its walls, and Aziraphale nervously straightened the bowtie he was wearing when he saw that it was crooked.

For an eighteen year old, he didn’t look too bad. A bit soft around the middle, sure, but he wasn’t unduly sweaty or breaking out. His wide, blue eyes looked hopelessly naive, but hopefully his first aid training would help offset any concerns his potential employer might have about that.

And, of course, he’d dressed properly formal for an interview. Button-up baby blue shirt, cream sport coat, khakis. He wasn’t sure what he expected, really, but it certainly wasn’t to have the elevator doors slide open to reveal… a tiny lobby, with another door. He stepped up to it, knocked, and clasped his hands behind his back.

He certainly,  _ certainly  _ hadn’t expected the person who opened the door to be the child he was meant to babysit.

Adam stared up at him, with blue, unfathomable eyes, and then said in his four-year-old voice, “Are you going to be my new daycare teacher?”

“What - er, no. I’m here to talk to your dad about being your babysitter.” Aziraphale gave Adam a little bow and said, “A teacher gets to boss you around, but I believe  _ you  _ get to boss around a babysitter. It’s rather a better deal, in my opinion.”

“Really?” Adam had his blond brows downturned in very serious thought.

“Let the man in already,” said a voice from inside the house. And then Anthony J. Crowley stumbled out, and Aziraphale laughed, before he hurriedly tried to hide it behind a cough.

A tie with a t-shirt? A sparkly, silver, poorly tied tie? And that  _ belt,  _ goodness, he looked rather silly indeed. Not that Aziraphale said anything, especially when Adam ruffled up his little, downy wings, clearly disgruntled, and turned around. He led Aziraphale to the living room, which had dark, grey walls, a huge glass sliding door leading out to a balcony, and so many houseplants Aziraphale didn’t immediately know where to sit.

Mr. Crowley clued him in when he took a seat at a rather ostentatious red leather stool, his wings spreading out behind him until the tips of his black feathers brushed the floor on either side of him. Adam, however, bounced onto a simple, grey couch, and then patted the cushion beside him with a plain look of expectation. Mr. Crowley gestured vaguely in the same direction, and so, Aziraphale sat.

“First thing’s first,” started Mr. Crowley.

“You’ve gotta be free lots,” Adam interrupted. “My Daddy’s very, very busy, and I think you’ll have to sleep over some.”

For the second time in as many minutes, Aziraphale was trying to hide a laugh behind coughing. “Is that so?” He didn’t tell Adam he’d already discussed scheduling with Mr. Crowley via email before even coming.

“Yep. And you’ve got to be okay with my friends coming over for the sleepover too.”

“What are your friends like?”

“We’re the Them,” said Adam, as though it was the most normal thing to say he could imagine. Aziraphale wanted to ruffle his blond locks and brown feathers, he was so precious. “There’s Pepper and Wensleydale and Brian. Wensleydale isn’t really named Wensleydale, but that’s what everyone calls him.”

“They sound wonderful,” Aziraphale said. “But I can’t babysit anyone without their parents’ permission, I’m afraid.”

“Don’t worry about that, I can take care of it,” said Adam, in the tone of someone who’d heard an adult say that exact phrase and then solve some unsolvable problem.

“Right, well, I think that’s my cue to get going,” said Mr. Crowley.

“I’m sorry, what?” Aziraphale’s head snapped towards him, wondering for a moment if he’d misheard. Had he messed something up? Was Mr. Crowley already so assured that Aziraphale wasn’t the right fit? Could he try to change his mind -

“Got lots of work to do, you know. Papers to sign and parents to bother about my new babysitter, all that.” Standing up, the man brushed off his ridiculous ensemble. Grey hair twinkled at his temples, blending into the red locks almost too well to be noticed. “Spare key’s on the kitchen counter, Adam will give you the tour. Don’t let him have anything sweet before dinner, no matter what he tells you.”

Holding his hand out, Crowley offered the bewildered teen a handshake. And then he was tossing Aziraphale a credit card, saying, “Ice cream afterwards is fine,” and turning to leave. “Be back around ten, bedtime is eight and not a minute later. He can pick any bedtime story he wants from his shelf, but not from mine, If he says he’s read something from there before he’s lying. See you later.”

“Er, sorry, are you sure?” Aziraphale scrambled off the couch after him, barely able to believe his eyes when Crowley picked up a black leather briefcase and slung it over one shoulder like a young punk with a backpack.

“Well you haven’t been staring at him inappropriately, so you’re not a pedophile. And you’re comfortable with his wings, clearly, or you wouldn’t have sat next to him. All looks good to me.”

“Uh. Er. I.”

“Do you have to leave right away, Daddy?” Adam had followed both of them off the couch, and now clutched the bottom hem of his little blue t-shirt in both hands. “I thought up a few tests for Mister, um. Mister…”

“Aziraphale,” said Aziraphale.

“Sorry, kiddo,” said Crowley. He knelt by his son, lifted the sunglasses we wore onto his forehead, and locked his golden, piercing eyes onto those baby blues. “I’ll try to be back before bedtime, alright? But I only managed to cancel one meeting for today.”

Staring down at his own feet, Adam replied, “I und-a-stand.”

Crowley kissed his son’s forehead, pushed the sunglasses back on, nodded at Aziraphale, and then. He was just gone.

The apartment felt very quiet after that.

“So, can I see some of those tests you’ve got planned?” Aziraphale tried, feeling very gentle and almost as lost as Adam looked.

Slowly, the little boy nodded, his baby-fluff wings unwrapping from where they’d begun to hunch around him protectively. “Uh-huh. Come this way Mister Aze - Azee - Az - ”

“You can call me Azzie,” he offered.

“Right. Mr. Azzie, follow me.”

Aziraphale did, into a kitchen tiled in white and with silvery granite countertops he worried Adam might bang his head on, and he thought he didn’t mind the awkward silence. Adam seemed like a very sweet, precocious child, and Crowley was… well. He wasn’t  _ Aziraphale’s  _ father, and if the young human wanted to pay his way through veterinary school, he’d better start saving up.

(He absolutely wasn’t thinking about the grey in Crowley’s temples and the flashes of collarbone his shirt had afforded. Aziraphale wasn’t going to hit on his new employer.)


	2. In the Thick of Things

One week into Aziraphale’s new job, and he still had yet to meet the Them. Adam was getting increasingly annoyed with this, but Aziraphale didn’t mind; one child was already enough of a handful, considering how unpracticed he was.

As a consolation prize, Aziraphale had asked Adam if he wanted to meet Aziraphale’s friends instead. Adam had tapped one chubby little finger onto his chin a couple of times before nodding. Making another mental note to email Crowley, who Aziraphale had yet to see in more than brief flashes since that initial “interview,” he pulled out his phone to text Anathema.

She seemed to think that inviting over a pair of strange young adults was a bad idea. Aziraphale, on the other hand, was annoyed enough with Crowley’s continued absence to throw caution to the wind. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, especially when the odds of Crowley actually coming home in time to see Anathema and Newt were so slim.

With very little prodding, Anathema had already promised to get Newt into Dick Turpin as soon as possible, and then Aziraphale turned his attention back to the little boy coloring in front of him. Every couple of minutes, Adam would stop scribbling with his red crayon to twist his arms around and try to scratch at the root of his wings. A little scatter of baby feathers had begun to form beneath the wooden kitchen chair.

“Someone’s molting,” Aziraphale noted.

Head snapping up from his work, Adam said, “Do you think I’m getting my grown up feathers?”

“Could be,” Aziraphale said. Adam grinned widely, revealing a missing tooth which Aziraphale still hadn’t asked about. He hadn’t thought children that young lost teeth yet. But now wasn’t the time, considering that Adam had begun scratching his wings with renewed vigor. “Oh come here, you. Scratching your wings won’t make feathers grow faster.”

Jutting out his fat bottom lip, Adam hopped down from his chair and walked over to Aziraphale’s. While his babysitter picked him up and put him on his lap, Adam said, “But it  _ itches.  _ It itches  _ lots  _ and  _ lots.” _

“I know, Adam, I know.” Aziraphale reached across the table to retrieve the boy’s art supplies, and when Adam happily leaned forward to continue working, he pressed his thumbs into the roots above Adam’s wings. Since it was summer, the little guy was wearing a tank-top which gave Aziraphale easy enough access.

Adam wiggled a bit. “Are you going to groom me?”

“That’s right,” said Aziraphale.

“I’m big enough to groom myself,” Adam protested.

“But you’ve got a very important art project you don’t want to stop in the middle of, right?”

The pirate ship Adam had been dutifully coloring in hot-rod colors was, in fact, only half finished, and Adam nodded. Was it meant to be on fire or just painted with flames? Aziraphale had no idea, and the smiling pirates on it didn’t seem too fussed either way.

Regardless, Aziraphale rubbed his fingers in small circles just beneath Adam’s wings, and before long his hands were greasy with wing-oil. He began to comb it through Adam’s downy feathers, stopping for a few firmer strokes whenever Adam began to giggle and wiggle at the ticklishness. He had to supplement with olive oil halfway through, since Adam was so small and Aziraphale didn’t exactly have the appropriate equipment to contribute himself. One of his wings had been tamed into something half-resembling order when the doorbell buzzed.

“I’ve got it!” Adam announced, bouncing away and nearly stomping Aziraphale’s foot in the process. Now Aziraphale knew why Adam was the one to answer the door when  _ he’d  _ arrived.

“Are you Mr. Azzie’s friends?” Asked Adam. Or, it was more like a  _ demand. _

“Well aren’t you just the cutest thing,” cooed Newt’s low voice from the entranceway.

Aziraphale hurried to stand up before Adam decided Newt was a dumb adult with no concept of how  _ mature  _ and  _ un-cute  _ Adam really was.

Introductions went by relatively smoothly, despite Aziraphale’s fears. The biggest hiccup was when Newt’s eyes had lit on the high-tech flatscreen and array of gaming systems at one end of the living room, and asked if they worked.

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Aziraphale had answered. “Adam hasn’t asked to play with them yet.”

“If you wanted me to plug them in - ”

“Adam,” interrupted Anathema. “Do you want to see the magazine I got today? It’s got art in there like yours.”

This was a bit of a stretch, in Aziraphale’s opinion. Anathema’s conspiracy theory magazines were a point of contention amongst the friend group. But they definitely kept Adam distracted, since the little angel seemed enamored with all the obviously photoshopped images of underwater cities.

“Everything is going to end up underwater if we’re not careful,” Anathema was saying. “Global warming is going to flood the whole planet, except for the highest mountain peaks.”

“That’s okay, because Daddy is teaching me how to fly,” said Adam. “We can just stay in the sky all the time.”

“What about when your wings get tired? You can’t fly forever,” Anathema insisted.

“Daddy’s wings never get tired. He can carry me when I need a nap.” Pausing, Adam seemed to think about that for a minute. “But Mr. Azzie doesn’t have any wings. So he’ll have to move to a mountain, I s’ppose.”

Anathema continued, in a tone that left Aziraphale both exasperated and concerned (what if she frightened Adam?) “What about the rest of the humans? They can’t all fit on mountains.”

Frowning, Adam seemed to think about this a bit harder. He chewed the end of his crayon, but stopped before Aziraphale could remind him to. “I dunno. Why do you even care? You’re not a human either.”

She was so surprised that she actually leaned backwards in the stool -  _ Crowley’s  _ stool - and almost toppled right off of it. “How could you tell?”

It was true, most people didn’t notice the subtle differences that made Anathema a hybrid. Unlike an angel, she didn’t have a great big pair of wings poking out her back to give her away, nor did she have cat ears or a dog tail or any other of the species-bending giveaways people tended to look for first.

“Your skin is shiny,” Adam answered simply.

“Well spotted, little pigeon,” Aziraphale said. And then he ruffled Adam’s hair into a riotous mess of curls, because he didn’t want to ruin those newly groomed wings. “But be a bit more tactful, alright? Some people don’t want you to mention things like that. At least until they get to know you better.”

“What counts as better?” Adam whined, halfheartedly trying to bat away Aziraphale’s hand.

“Ha!” Said Newt.

“Oh no,” said Anathema.

“Oh fuck,” said Aziraphale.

The lights in the penthouse abruptly went out. It didn’t last very long, only a couple of seconds, really, though it felt much longer. Unfortunately, what  _ did  _ decide to linger was the scent of burning metal, and the sparks shooting off of the xbox Newt had somehow managed to ruin.

“What’s fuck mean?” Adam asked, when the whole room had been silent for a long while.

Groaning, Aziraphale bowed his head and smothered his face in both his palms. “How am I supposed to explain this to your father?”

“Better to ask forgiveness than permission?” Newt offered weakly.

Anathema smacked him in her head with her magazine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoy reading (and are over 18), feel free to hop over to [my twitter](https://twitter.com/twitchingcorpse) and scream with me about Good Omens!! Or you could just [leave me some CuriousCat asks](https://curiouscat.me/twitchingcorpse) about where you want the story to go/theories/etc?


	3. In the House Made a Home

“I want to stay up,” Adam tried to argue, though he was covering a wide yawn with one hand. “I want to tell Daddy it wasn’t your fault.”

“Sorry pigeon.” Aziraphale tucked the sheets in close around Adam’s tiny frame, the blue stripes making him look even more pale and vulnerable than usual. “Tell you what. I’ll tell your Daddy he’s not allowed to give me any punishments unless you say it’s okay in the morning. Does that sound fair?”

Of course, Aziraphale didn’t plan on doing any such thing. And of course, Adam didn’t seem particularly mollified by this compromise, but it was at least enough to keep him quiet. Despite all the trouble he’d been giving Aziraphale, though, he still fell asleep right at the beginning of  _ The Velveteen Rabbit. _ It was one of Aziraphale’s childhood favorites, but the little angel seemed to find it boring, which might have saddened Aziraphale had he not been so anxious about what was coming next.

Heading into the living room once more, Aziraphale made sure to leave Adam’s door cracked just the slightest bit open, in case he woke up and wanted Aziraphale to get him a glass of water or somesuch.

And then he was left sitting on the couch. Waiting. Fretting.

Newt had texted him no less than thirty apologies since they’d left, which had been just before Adam’s dinnertime. Aziraphale tried to assure him that it was fine, since it wasn’t  _ his  _ fault Aziraphale hadn’t been paying attention. Newt was practically magnetized to technology he could break. It wasn’t something he  _ meant  _ to do.

Didn’t erase the consequences, though. And Aziraphale had a feeling that Crowley wasn’t going to be as forgiving as he was.

Time seemed to pass at the slowest crawl imaginable. It was much, much worse than the time before Aziraphale’s last fencing match of high school, when he’d been listening to the tick of a locker room clock echo off cinderblock walls. It was worse than the time he’d gotten a call that Mother had been injured, but when he’d rushed to the hospital, she had actually  _ glared  _ at him. He was bad for her blood-pressure on the best of days, she’d said.

“Michael,” Father had reprimanded. “He was obviously worried.”

“He isn’t five anymore, he can deal with his  _ feelings  _ on his own, Gabriel.”

Tick, tock, tick, tock. A hard plastic waiting room chair, a sympathetic nurse sneaking glances at him from the corner of the room. And then Father had come out and said, “Really, I don’t know what you were so worked up about. Angels are much more resilient than humans.”

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Footsteps tapping over the hardwood floor brought Aziraphale back to the present. He straightened his spine, kept his gaze focused forwards as Mr. Crowley swaggered in and pulled his tie over his head. “Welcome home, Sir,” Aziraphale said.

“Huh? You’re still here? It’s damn near midnight already.” Crowley walked straight into the kitchen, pouring himself his customary glass of single-malt scotch before he would head into Adam’s room to check up on his son. “Adam give you trouble today or something?”

“No, not at all,” Aziraphale hastily explained. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“You gave…  _ him  _ trouble?” Crowley wrinkled his nose, clearly confused.

“I’m afraid I’ve given  _ you  _ trouble,” he corrected. “I, um… was careless. And I broke Adam’s xbox. Fried it completely, as far as I can tell.”

“You  _ what?”  _ More than angry, Crowley sounded flabbergasted. “How did you manage to utterly break something a four-year-old can operate just fine?”

While Crowley carried his alcohol over to the xbox to inspect it more closely, Aziraphale nervously fidgeting with his bow tie. “Well, that’s the thing. I, ah, I have a friend with a particular gift for breaking anything more advanced than a flip phone. Adam was feeling disappointed about his own friends not visiting, so I - ”

Voice gone suddenly tense as a coiled snake about to strike, Crowley interrupted. “Did you invite a bunch of strange teenagers into my home?”

“Only two - ”

“What, did you think this would be a convenient place to throw a party? No parents around, how wonderful! Did you even supervise them? I have stuff in here worth more than you can imagine, if I find even one thing missing - ”

“No!” Aziraphale stood up also, resenting the way Crowley had loomed over him. He could feel those piercing yellow eyes on him even through the sunglasses. “They’re my friends, not - not hooligans! I only invited them because, because…”

“Oh, yes, try to justify your poor decision making to me. I’m all ears. I hope you know losing your job is the  _ least  _ of your worries after this.”

Clearly Mr. Crowley misunderstood Aziraphale’s hesitation. It wasn’t that he didn’t  _ have  _ an explanation, he just hadn’t wanted to  _ say  _ it. But the more Crowley snarked, the angrier he got himself, the less Aziraphale found himself caring about the consequences.

“Adam’s lonely!”

_ That  _ shut him up.

“He doesn’t understand why he can’t go to daycare anymore, not really. And of course  _ I  _ can’t tell him, because  _ you  _ haven’t told me anything. All day he wants to tell me about their adventures, about how wonderful it’ll be the next time he can see them, and - I haven’t the slightest what to  _ do  _ about it. Yesterday he was up until ten crying, did you know that? No, because you don’t  _ listen  _ to me, you’ve hustled me straight out the apartment every single day as soon as you arrive! Which is  _ always  _ after Adam’s fallen asleep, even though he insists you tell the best bedtime stories, and I. I. Bugger.”

For a long moment, Crowley just stared at him with his mouth honest to god hanging open. Aziraphale flushed, and was on the verge of apologizing for his outburst when a tiny voice cut through the gloom of the half-lit room.

“Mr. Azzie? Daddy?”

Wheeling around, Aziraphale saw that Adam had wandered in from his room. Great, he’d just lectured Mr. Crowley  _ and  _ cursed in front of Adam.  _ Again. _

“Are you guys fighting?” Adam scrubbed at his eyes with chubby fists, frowning all the while. “You’re not allowed to fight.”

“No, little pigeon,” Aziraphale kneeled in front of him. “I just got a bit upset, it wasn’t your Daddy’s fault.”

“Pigeon?” Crowley faintly repeated.

Shrewd, blue eyes inspected Aziraphale’s face carefully for any sign of a lie. Apparently satisfied, Adam nodded and said, “I’ll punish you for that, too. No one’s allowed to yell at Daddy, except me.”

The thought that he might not get the chance to find out Adam’s idea of a punishment nearly broke Aziraphale’s heart. His smile wobbled on his face, remembering that Mr. Crowley had already told him he was as good as fired. Tears tried to well up in his eyes, and then he was hurriedly standing, trying to get enough distance to stop Adam from noticing.

“Right, then. Sorry Mr. Crowley. I’ll be heading out now, before I lose my temper again.”

“Wait.”

Freezing, his back to both the people who actually lived in the apartment, Aziraphale tried (and failed) to stop his shoulders from rising up around his ears. Crowley wouldn’t reprimand him in front of Adam, would he?

“Adam, let’s go back to bed. It’s too late to be up.” Crowley and Adam both started to walk away, and Crowley said to Aziraphale as they passed him, “Wait in the living room. We’re not done.”

All Aziraphale could do was nod, sit down again, and wait.

Always waiting.

Voices drifted down the hallway to Aziraphale. He didn’t want to listen in, except of course that he did, in fact, want to listen in. Not only to appease his own curiosity, but also to distract himself from the dread trying to gnaw at his stomach. He didn’t catch most of what they said, but he  _ did  _ hear Crowley say, “And then the cyborg alien got his brains bashed in, and he  _ died.”  _ Which struck Aziraphale as a bit morbid, but was followed by a burst of giggling from Adam, so what did he know?

Not much, if he was honest with himself.

Mr. Crowley left the room not long after, and closed the door behind him with a sigh. Aziraphale opened his mouth, ready to say something, but Crowley held up a hand to silence him.

Only after Aziraphale’s (former) employer had already poured himself another drink and swallowed it down did he speak. “Take Adam to the pool tomorrow.”

“Er, I. What?”

“You groomed his wings,” Crowley mumbled into his glass. “And you did a good job of it. Better than his halfwitted teacher.”

Turning in his seat so that he could focus on Crowley more fully, Aziraphale said, “You’re not going to fire me because I groomed Adam’s wings?”

Instead of answering properly, Crowley grumbled, tossed the ice in his glass into his mouth, and crunched through it. Aziraphale’s teeth hurt just listening to the sound. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, kid. Take him to the pool tomorrow, bring his little… water… floaty things. Might help him to get out of the house more.”

“Right,” said Aziraphale. “Okay.” And then, “I’m not a kid.”

Glass clinked on the countertop when Crowley set it down, and then he was sauntering over in front of the couch. He leaned down low, his face so close to Aziraphale’s that he could smell the alcohol on his breath. “No? Was it  _ adult  _ when you decided to invite people into my house without permission?”

_ No, but I feel rather adult staring at your jaw and thinking about how nice it might be to sink my teeth into,  _ Aziraphale didn’t say. “I’m  _ not _ a kid,” he insisted instead, tilting his chin up so that his and Crowley’s noses almost brushed.

His red hair was so dark in the night. Like fire might look if it hadn’t ever learned to let off light properly. Like a bronze sword left hanging on a wall.

Something between triumph and disappointment filled Aziraphale when Crowley stepped back and looked away. “Go home, Aziraphale. Be here at seven thirty on the dot.”

“Yes, Sir,” Aziraphale said.

Right before he closed the door, he could’ve sworn he heard a bemused mutter of “pigeon,” behind him.


	4. In this Unfamiliar Place

Summer hadn’t really gotten hot enough for Aziraphale to want to go swimming, but Adam actually jumped up and down when Aziraphale told him they were going. He forgot all about punishing his babysitter in favor of hopping around the house, which gave Aziraphale a good reason to stop dwelling on yesterday. If only because he was chasing after Adam, trying to stop him from knocking anything over or banging his head into door frames.

_ Don’t think about it, _ Aziraphale insisted to himself, when he was sticking one arm out to catch Adam and using the other to seal up a ziplock bag full of raisins.

_ Don’t think about it, _ he repeated while slathering Adam up with sunscreen.

_ Don’t. Think. About. It. _

“Why couldn’t your friends come with us?” Adam whined while Aziraphale buckled him into his carseat. Crowley had left it in the front hall for him that morning, with a tag still on it.

“Two reasons. One, your dad wants me to be more cautious with inviting strangers over,” Aziraphale explained. He walked around to the driver’s door, climbed in, and then turned the key in his car. “And two, Anathema doesn’t like swimming in public.”

With all the innocence his little body could hold, Adam asked, “Why?”

Sighing, Aziraphale began to pull out of the apartment’s parking garage. “Pigeon, has anyone ever been mean to you because of your wings?”

“Uh-huh. Daddy said he was just jealous.”

“He probably was. Your wings are  _ wonderful.” _ Adam sat up a bit straighter in his car seat, metaphorically preening at the praise. “But it’s still not fun when someone is mean to people who are different, is it?”

Adam shook his head, which Aziraphale barely caught sight of in the rear view mirror. “Nuh-uh.”

“Well, the kind of hybrid Anathema is, people usually notice when she’s going swimming. And she doesn’t want to deal with them being rude and mean.”

“She should just hit them. They always stop really fast if I do that.”

Aziraphale only narrowly managed to slam his foot onto the breaks fast enough to avoid running a red light. “Adam, you can’t  _ hit  _ people!”

“That’s what my teacher said, too,” Adam whined. “But he  _ deserved  _ it! Being mean is against the rules, too!”

“So just because he breaks the rules, it’s okay for you to do it too? Doesn’t that make you the same?” Aziraphale was suffering from major emotional whiplash. To go from,  _ my poor little pigeon’s been picked on  _ to  _ and responded by hitting another child _ ? He hadn’t the slightest how to impart this particular lesson onto Adam.

“No dummy, I can’t go around picking on people too. They’re  _ different  _ rules, so it’s different.”

Much as Aziraphale was coming to love babysitting Adam, he felt a bit out of his depth here. Still, he tried to find the right words, all the way until he had the car parked, and Adam unbuckled, and their pool bag slung over one shoulder.

“What if he didn’t realize he was being mean? What if he was just repeating something his parents said, and didn’t know what it really meant?”

“Well, he knows  _ now,  _ doesn’t he?”

This was a surprisingly good argument for a four year old, and Aziraphale was still struggling to dismantle it in his head when he flashed the membership card Crowley had left him at the bored man sitting at the gateway to the pool. He waved them both in, and Aziraphale led Adam by the hand to the locker rooms.

There were quite a few angels in there. Fathers using wide, brown wings to shield shy children, brothers buffeting one another with gusts of wind that risked knocking both over. Aziraphale felt a little bit out of place, shoulders too light, frame too small. But Adam tugged on his hand, said, “Pool!” And it kept him moving.

It wasn’t as though Aziraphale was the  _ only  _ human there. Nor was he the only human chaperoning an angel, even. He comforted himself with that idea while he put on his own swimsuit. No one thought he was out of place beside himself.

Both of them headed out into the pool area, which Aziraphale was quickly realizing was a bit more involved than an average public swimming pool. There was a sandy area with scattered plastic buckets and shovels, a hot tub, and the pool itself had a faux rock face with a waterfall cascading down it, as well as a small waterslide.

Rather than head towards the water, like Aziraphale had assumed Adam’s excitement implied he wanted to do, the little boy headed towards the large sandbox and picked up a shovel. Aziraphale trailed behind him, unsure what else to do.

Adam had a habit of doing things studiously, with a look of focus on his face Aziraphale didn’t think he’d ever seen on another child that age. “Do you want me to help you dig?” Aziraphale asked, when all Adam did for a minute was try to use his flimsy shovel to make a hole in the sand in front of him.

Shaking his head, Adam continued to dig wordlessly. Aziraphale sat back and decided to just enjoy the sunlight, which grew warmer with each passing minute. Adam bounced in place where he was squatting, tiny toes digging into the ground to keep him anchored while he labored over the dry sand. It kept crumbling back in on itself, much to his obvious frustration.

“Do you want me to get some water, so it’ll be easier to dig?” Aziraphale offered.

Small, annoyed grunts answered him, so Aziraphale took the initiative to scoop up an abandoned, blue bucket and walked over to the water fountain. He hoped the plastic toys scattered about were meant for general use and not just dropped by careless children whose parents were now belligerently looking for them. While he waited for the bucket to fill up, he watched someone walk up to Adam and lean down. She seemed around Mr. Crowley’s age, with pitch black hair cut short and messy, and blue eyes like ice chips.

Worried, Aziraphale decided a half-filled bucket was good enough. Before he could get back to Adam’s side the strange woman was saying, “What are you digging?” Her voice was somewhat rough, as though she smoked, or perhaps yelled a lot, but it was saccharin towards Adam.

“A pit,” he said, not looking up from his endeavors.

“What kind of pit?”

Shouldering his way past the woman took more effort than Aziraphale had expected. He felt a bit guilty, being rude to a total stranger, and she shot him a belligerent look. Her dark, red wings ruffled indignantly. It wasn’t as though he could let a random stranger get so close to Adam, though, and for his part Adam seemed grateful for Aziraphale offering him the bucket.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” Said the woman.

“It’s a pit of despair,” said Adam.

“My name is Aziraphale,” said Aziraphale.

“What?” Said the woman.

And then Aziraphale was laughing, because  _ wow,  _ where had Adam learned  _ that  _ word? “A pit of despair,” repeated Adam which only made Aziraphale laugh harder. “It’s where I’m going to put all the bad pirates, because they broke out of the prison the cowboys were running. This way there’s more se-cu-ri-ty.”

“Very - very clever,” Aziraphale gasped between laughs. “Yes, they’ll have to, ahem, be very clever to find a way out of there.”

They nodded back and forth to one another, while the woman looked between them. She seemed utterly baffled, which very much amused Aziraphale. “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself yet,” she said, as though the change in subject might keep him from noticing how confused she’d been. “You can call me Bea.”

“Nice to meet you, Bea.” Aziraphale offered his hand to shake, but when she took it, all she did was  _ squeeze.  _ Her nails were chewed to the quick.

“And what’s your darling little angel’s name?”

Embarrassingly, Aziraphale felt his cheeks heat up. “Oh no, he’s not mine. I’m babysitting.”

“I’m Adam!” Adam announced.

Bea smiled, and Aziraphale felt oddly cold, despite the hot sun on his pale shoulders. Her teeth looked rather sharp, and he didn’t want them directed anywhere near Adam. “Really? That’s funny, my ex-boyfriend and I considered that name when I had my own baby.”

Swallowing managed to dislodge most of the misgivings trying to climb up Aziraphale’s throat. “It’s a good name, isn’t it?” He said weakly.

“Yes. The original sin, and all that. An ironic name for an angel.”

“Quite.” Aziraphale tried to subtly reposition himself so that he was properly standing between Bea and Adam; he had a feeling she saw through every one of his anxieties, and found them amusing. “So, are you here with your child today?”

“Not at all. He died, you see.”

“Oh, I’m - I’m so, so sorry - ” There he went, shoving his foot in his mouth again.

“Don’t be.”

Or… not?

“I wasn’t all that broken up about it. Can’t say the same for my ex, but you know. We all have our weaknesses.”

The sound of other families having a wonderful day swelled between them. Oblivious, Adam continued to dig his pit of despair. Aziraphale tried to search for the right words, but what could he possibly say to that? To someone who thought that mourning a life was a weakness? He wondered if she’d miscarried, or if the baby had lived a few days in an incubator, struggling to breathe, and then abruptly felt horrified at himself for theorizing on someone else’s tragedy like that. Through it all, Bea’s icy eyes didn’t look away from Aziraphale.

“What did you say your name was, again?” She asked him when more than enough time had passed for it to become awkward.

“Aziraphale,” he said, trying to pretend he wasn’t as shaky as he felt.

“Your last name wouldn’t happen to be Fell, would it?”

Again, she left him dumbstruck, and her smile when she turned to leave said she knew it. “You know,” she tossed over her shoulder. “My baby looked just like his father. Same yellowy eyes and all. It’s  _ such  _ an unusual, striking hue, don’t you think?”

Good thing she didn’t wait for Aziraphale to respond, because he hadn’t the slightest idea if she was implying what he  _ thought  _ she was implying. Because - what if she was? What did that even  _ mean?  _ Why would Crowley have an asshole ex wandering around this fancy pool he’d sent his son (his second son?) to? There were too many questions whirling through Aziraphale’s head.

“Hey, Adam?”

“Yeah Mr. Azzie?”

“When you’re done with the pit of despair, do you think we could go hang out in the lazy river?”

“I wanna play in the waterfall!”

“Alright. That sounds good too.” Sighing, Aziraphale laid down in the sand beside Adam, and somehow knew that despite the obvious invitation to do so, the little boy  _ wouldn’t  _ bury him. Maybe because such an endeavor was quite a bit for a single child on his lonesome, and maybe because bothering Aziraphale just ranked that much lower on his list of priorities than getting the pirate situation under control.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long break between updates :""( I'm dealing with... just a lot of really bad nonsense irl. Death in the family, among other stuff. I hope this update doesn't disappoint anyone after so long spent waiting /);o;(\

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone, idk what i'm doing :"") pls pls pls give feedback, even just a lil <3 emoji to stand in for extra kudos or something would mean!!!! so much!!!!!
> 
> this fic will probably get pretty goddamn dark, fair warning to everyone. azzie's home life has involved a lot of struggles; the universe it's set in features many, many hybrids who face a variety of problems themselves; and adam, as always, is the nexus upon which strife tries desperately to center itself. even if he's not the antichrist anymore.
> 
> also yes crowley and azzie will fuck. give them a bit, they're not friends of 6,000+ years in this au


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